Liz Taylor: Making Changes

			Liz Taylor is an award-winning journalist, speaker, and pioneer on a host of aging issues. With over 30 years in the aging field, she's worked with thousands of older adults and their families as a geriatric care manager. Her Website is www.agingwellconsortium.com.

It doesn't matter what age you are, sometimes you have to put your money, and your body, where your mouth is. To coin a phrase. At age 64, I'm in the midst of shaking things up in my life. Just a few short months ago, I didn’t dream I’d be doing this. Everything is in play.

It started with my business. I'm building Aging Deliberately around a new Website, AgingWellConsortium.com. It wasn't easy making that decision, nor is it easy getting it done, but it's now open for business.

Then, as I was on my walk a few weeks ago, I decided to start a new nonprofit. Yes, like I need another project. However, this is needed — it's an organization that, for a membership fee, will help people stay at home ("age in place") more satisfactorily by organizing, overseeing and vetting the programs and services they need. 

Similar projects are sprouting up elsewhere in the country (two in the North Seattle area), all based on a similar model that began in the Boston area in 2001. It's one of the many new waves of change that we'll be seeing in the future. I'll tell you more about the concept soon. 

I'm putting my house on the market. As some of you may remember, it was featured in The Seattle Times a few years ago (click here).It's a wonderful, cozy little house that has served my needs extraordinarily well, but it's time to move on.

Having lived here for nearly twenty years, though, you can imagine what energy and time it's taking to downsize. I'm pleased to say it's almost done, thanks to a professional organizer I hired to help. I couldn't have done it without her. 

The new home I've bought is smaller, easier to maintain, and closer to town. It needs work, too, before I can move in — that's next on the agenda. 

I've also been to Portland (OR), visiting two of my favorite assisted living facilities. The owners, Bill Reed and Lydia Lundberg, prove what imagination, good intentions and a healthy respect for older adults can do to make eldercare actually (as the kids say) awesome. I wrote about their innovative operation in The Seattle Times a few years ago (click here). Since then they've added a second community, this one designed not just for the elders but for protecting the environment. 

These are busy times. As soon as I can, I'll get another AgingDeliberately Newsletter out with details. Sign up for it here. And, watch this space, too.

Changes are never easy, but the challenge to accomplish new things can be invigorating – even when we didn’t know we had it in us.